Any potatoes that are suitable for baking are fine to use for this recipe.

Typically twice baked potatoes are made much larger than the Maris Piper ones that I have pictured but those are what I had in my kitchen so I’m just using them up.

First clean the potatoes thoroughly and then poke holes in either side so that they can vent steam.

I like doing them properly in the oven because the skins some out tastier that way, but you can cheat and do the first bake in the microwave which is considerably faster than putting them in the oven.

Make one or two extra potatoes to go into the filling. The filling gets much more dense after it’s mixed than the fluffy potato you started with, so if you try to fill with the same amount that you scraped from of the skins you will find yourself coming up a little short.

Microwave cook time: 3 mins and flip then another 3 mins … poke them with a fork and if they’re not tender yet, flip them again and put them in for another three mins.

Oven cook time: 350f or 180c for 30 mins and flip then another 30 mins… poke them with a fork and if they’re not tender yet, flip them again and put them in for another 10 mins and test them every 10 mins until they’re tender.

Next you need to slice the potatoes in half. I’d suggest you allow them to cool a bit first because they’re red hot coming out of the oven and you’re likely to hurt yourself.

Once you can barely touch them, slice each potato in half and allow the halves to sit out and cool before you scrape out the insides.

This is kinder to your fingers and they’ll be substantially less fragile the cooler they are.

When you can comfortably hold the potato halves in the palm of your hand you need to scoop out the insides as you would for potato skins, leaving just enough of a shell so that they are able to retain their shape.

You can use a spoon for this step but I find a melon baller is actually the ideal tool for this job.

Put all of the potato you’ve scooped from the skins in a bowl to make the filling.

You can be as creative as you like when making the filling. Use whatever you’ve got in the fridge.

I had some low fat roasted pepper cream cheese and a bag of grated mozzarella and cheddar in the fridge so that’s what I’ve used.

I just mashed up the potato with a couple of tablespoons of the flavored cream cheese and then seasoned the filling to taste with salt and cracked black pepper.

You can mash the filling or blend it with a stick blender depending on your preference for texture (or your access to a stick blender).

I like my filling very smooth so I used my stick blender for the job.

Fill the skins carefully. If you made the extra potato for the filling you’ll be able to make these nice and rounded on top. If you did not, they may be slightly concave.